<p>The GBIF Portal provides access to information from a wide range of different organisations and institutions.  One of the views that the portal offers is a summary of the data shared by each data publisher or included in an individual dataset or one of the (cross-institution) information networks to which many of these datasets belong.</p>

<p>GBIF data publishers are of different types:
<ol type="1"><li> Publishers of information on the names and classification of organisms.
</li><li>Publishers of information on the occurrence of organisms in different locations and at different times.

</li><li>Publishers of images and other information on these organisms.</li></ol>
</p><br/>

<p>The <strong>Datasets</strong> area of the GBIF portal provides information on all three types of publishers and the datasets they are sharing.</p>

<h4>Searching for a dataset</h4>

<p>The simplest way to find information on a dataset, data publisher, or data network is to search for it by name using the Search box included on each page.</p>

<h5>Step-by-step guide</h5>

<ol type="1"><li>From the home page of the portal or any other page, enter the name of the dataset in the Search box and click "Go!".
</li><li>The portal will return lists of names that match or include the search string.  Results are grouped into four categories:
<ol type="a"><li>Scientific names
</li><li>Common names
</li><li>Countries
</li><li>Datasets
</li></ol></li><li>Simply select a name from the <strong>Dataset</strong> category to see the <strong>Dataset overview</strong> page for the given dataset, data publisher or data network.</li></ol>

<h4>Browsing the dataset list</h4>

<p>Alternatively, it is possible to select a dataset, data publisher, or data network by browsing an alphabetical list.  To access the <strong>Dataset browser</strong>, select the <a href="../datasets/">Explore datasets</a> link on the home page of the portal or the <a href="../datasets/">DATASETS</a> link included in the banner at the top of every page.</p>

<h5>Step-by-step guide</h5>

<ol type="1"><li> From the home page of the portal, select <a href="../datasets/">Explore datasets</a>.  

</li><li>The portal will display a list of datasets, data publishers, and data networks with names beginning with the letter "A" and links to pages for each other letter of the alphabet.  The information is presented in three separate categories (some categories may not be present for all letters of the alphabet):
<ol type="a"><li> Data networks - (cross-institution) information networks including datasets from a number of data publishers (e.g. <a href="../datasets/network/4">BioCASE</a>, <a href="../datasets/network/1">MaNIS</a> or <a href="../datasets/network/3">OBIS</a>).
</li><li>Data publishers - institutions and organisations serving data through the GBIF network.
</li><li>Datasets - individual data sets shared by a data publisher.
</li></ol></li><li>For each entry, the list will show a count of the number of species occurrence records that are shared via the GBIF the portal, and the number of these that have georeference coordinates.  For datasets there is also a count of the number of species (and of all taxa of any rank) that are included in the dataset.
</li><li>Select a dataset, data publisher or data network to see its <strong>Dataset overview</strong> page.</li></ol>

<h4>Dataset Overview Page</h4>

<p>The <strong>Dataset overview</strong> page provides information about the institution(s), organisation(s) and dataset(s) involved and summarises the occurrence data in a dataset or in all datasets served by a given data publisher or included in a data network.  Several of the links on this page lead to the <a href="../occurrences/">Occurrence search</a> page - see <a href="occurrence">Searching for occurrences</a> for more information on using this page.</p>

<h5>Step-by-step guide</h5>

<ol type="1"><li>Each <strong>Dataset overview</strong> page provides a map for all available georeferenced records from the dataset, data publisher or data network (all species).  Clicking on the map will zoom to higher detail (down to a display showing the density of records for each 0.1 by 0.1 degree cell) and then links directly to the <a href="../occurrences/">Occurrence search</a> page to explore the records from the selected cell.
</li><li>The map includes only records with coordinates.  These can be seen by selecting the link to "View all" occurrences from the dataset, data publisher or data network.  See <a href="maps">Maps in the GBIF portal</a> for more information on using these maps.
</li><li>The page includes an "Actions" box with quick links for the dataset, data publisher or data network
<ol type="a"><li>"Explore occurrences" opens the <a href="../occurrences/">Occurrence search</a> page to see occurrence records from the dataset, data publisher or data network.  See an example of using this link to find <a href="indonesiarecords" title="">datasets that contain occurrence records for Indonesia</a>.

</li><li>"Explore names and classification" (only on overview pages for datasets) opens a view of the species and higher groups served by the dataset.
</li><li>Options to list species or countries with occurrences included in the dataset are also included.
</li></ol></li><li>Each <strong>Dataset overview</strong> page presents further information on the institutions and organisations involved.  Publisher and network pages provide links to the relevant datasets.  Dataset pages link back to the information on the data publisher and to information on any networks to which the dataset belongs. </li></ol>
